S.C. targeted in 11-state recycling project

Old plastic bottles, discarded steel and used paper packaging may seem like trash.

But 24 manufacturers in South Carolina with 5,300 employees and $5.3 billion in sales are hungering for it.

Recycled materials are their feedstock.

And now there is a plan underway to help the companies that use the materials in South Carolina and 10 other states get more of it — while landfills get less.

For two days last month, about 100 businesspeople and government officials met in Atlanta to come up with ways to make municipalities better at recycling.

By collaborating across state lines, they’re hoping to build a better system of collecting the materials that feed Southeastern manufacturers. The Southeast Recycling Development Council, based in Brevard, N.C, sponsored the event with help from a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The December gathering resulted in a plan called SERDC 120, the number referring to the four-month development process. Along with South Carolina, the organization includes Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

No green talk

During a meeting with South Carolina’s recycling leaders this month, Will Sagar, the executive director of the council, never trumpeted the obvious environmental benefits.

And there’s at least one reason for that, when approaching elected officials and policymakers.

“The environmental message is not what they want to hear right now,” Sagar said Friday. “The message about the economic value is what helps us build support.”

But he added: “We’re not opposed to the environment. Our research drills in only on the economic side.”

Instead, they focus on a costly dilemma: The Southeast has lots manufacturers who need the recycled materials — but relatively short supplies of the stuff they need.

“With some of our companies, the soft drink industry for example, the package costs more than the product,” Sagar said.

The 11-state plan is a voluntary one with plenty of unknowns: How much would companies chip in as their “strategic, one-time, leveraged investments?” What is the best way to approach municipalities without seeming to invade?

The council is now gathering city surveys and will later narrow candidates down from about four municipalities per state to a much smaller number.

“Can we get these private, consumer product brand owners to make investments into these municipalities to make the difference, be it conversion to carts? Or does that municipality just need another truck?” Sagar said during his meeting with South Carolina recycling leaders.

“Or do they need to actually be working on their outreach program?”

The list of which Southeastern cities to approach has yet to be formed.

South Carolina’s recycling rate is slightly less than 30 percent. The same figure for Georgia isn’t tracked by the Georgia Recyclers Association or the Georgia Recycling Coalition.

About two decades ago, Florida lawmakers passed the state’s first recycling goal: 30 percent. In 2010, however, the state’s recycling rate was only 28 percent. There is a new recycling goal of 75 percent by the year 2020. As most will lament, recycling rates in the South lag other regions.

Why doesn’t the South recycle?

Sagar said he doesn’t think it’s because of any perceived liberal image associated with recycling.

“These are red states, but we are fiscally conservative,” he said.

Nancy Ogburn, who operates a recycling company in Irmo called Tomato Palms, also discounted the South’s political culture as the reason for poor recycling.

“I have done two educational sessions at two retirement communities, and people are fired up and raring to go and (saying), ‘Who do we need to call to get more attention?’ ”

She said the public needs to be educated about what’s at stake.

“People need to understand what’s happening to the materials, and what we can do with materials instead of letting it sit in a landfill for 400 years,” she said.

Ogburn and other recycling advocates also point to how cheap it is to throw trash in the garbage. Where it might cost as little as $30 per ton in landfill tipping fees in South Carolina and slightly higher in neighboring states, the per-ton fee soars to several times that amount in the Northeast.

Ronnie Grant, with Sonoco Products Company and the nonprofit RecyclonomicsSC, said it’s not realistic to try to drive up the cost of dumping things in a landfill.

“You’ve got a better chance of changing the culture,” Grant said. “There’s some deep, deep pockets when it comes to landfills. That would be a war.”

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